A successful beauty
product company asked the people in a large city to send pictures along with
brief letters about the most beautiful women they knew. With in a few weeks
thousands of letters were delivered to the company.

One letter in
particular caught the attention of the employees and soon it was handed to the
company president. The letter was written by a young boy who obviously was from
a broken home, living in a run-down neighborhood. With spelling corrections, an
excerpt from his letter read: "A beautiful woman lives down the street
from me. I visit her every day. She makes me feel like the most important kid
in the world. We play checkers and she listens to my problems. She understands
me and when I leave she always yells out the door that she's proud of me."

The boy ended his
letter saying, "This picture shows you that she is the most beautiful woman. I hope I have a wife as pretty as
her."

Intrigued by the
letter, the president asked to see this woman's picture. His secretary handed
him a photograph of a smiling, toothless woman, well-advanced in years, sitting
in a wheelchair. Sparse gray hair was pulled back in a bun and wrinkles that
formed deep furrows on her face were somehow diminished by the twinkle in her
eyes.

"We can't use
this woman," explained the president, smiling. "She would show the
world that our products aren't necessary to be beautiful."

"A man never discloses his own character so clearly as
when he describes another's." Jean Paul Richter, 1763-1825